The Rising Tide
by pink-promise
Summary: Fischer job failed & Arthur traded his memory for Ariadne's life. A year later, he washes up at a seashore & meets a girl named Vienna. Her father incepts the idea to take over the world in his mind: to destroy everything in between. Arthur/Ari/OC FLUFF
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

_The Rising Tide_

A mysterious man washes up at the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It is, unmistakably, Arthur, the Point Man. But his mind is scrambled by all the years in Limbo, and he hardly even remembers who he is, save the fact that he remembers anything about his past.

A beautiful girl, a sailor named Vienna, rescues him and helps Arthur remember everything about his past. They fall in love, but it is such a dangerous one. The more the truth unravels, the more Arthur wants to leave and explore all the things in his past life. As a broken-hearted Ariadne discovers him, the dangerous lurking force, Vienna's father, wants to destroy the whole crew and convert Arthur into a single fixed idea: To control the world with the skills that he obtains, and to destroy everything else in the way, including the crew and his old friends.

A story mixed with feelings, love, and revenge.

How love can get in the way of an Incepted idea, and what Arthur chooses.

To follow his heart, or to follow his mind?

His mind tells him to be with Vienna, the beautiful seacoast girl who had saved him.

But his heart, deep inside his soul, unwashed by the icy ocean waves, deep in his heart the one he really loves is Ariadne.

But who will he choose to love? And who does he choose to _**become**_…?

Read and subscribe to **this story** to find out.


	2. Vienna

**Notes: **

**I don't own them, okay? You know it all ;)**

**Please review, it takes about 5 seconds! And who doesn't love reviews.**

"_Hurry, hurry. I think I see something."_

"_What is it?"_

"_It's a man! Hurry, save him!"_

He spluttered. The taste of ocean lingered forever in his lips, the sound of crashing waves and the dirty mix of noises hiding in behind his ears, in his hair. He takes a breath, the strong stench of rotten fish greeted him and he moans again. Sunlight seems to replace his blurry vision of sea blue, becoming fireworks playing behind his eyelids.

"_Look, he's still breathing!"_

"_What do we do? What do we do?"_

"_Get help!"_

He can't remember anything; his mind is a long arrangement of scrambled words that don't make sense; he doesn't remember who he is. Only one word hangs before him, like an imaginary sign, speaking to him: Limbo. He didn't know what it meant anymore, what it was, but it reminds him of something about his past, and he hangs on to it, the little piece of property that defines who he is, and he repeats the confusing word backwards and over again in his mind.

"_Someone can save him, the girl in the white dress."_

"_Vienna, where is she!"_

A tall girl strode from the distance, her white dress flowing in the breeze, so salty you can almost taste it; and her long sand hair blows behind her. Vienna has tanned skin and wide silver eyes and a natural face save for a small upward stroke of eyeliner at the corner of her eyes. A hint of faded chocolate freckles danced under her eyelashes, golden under the sunset. Sporadic streams of light lightened up as waves of ocean galloped behind her graceful silhouette; her long shadowy strides turned into a sprint as she saw the drowning man.

"_Who is it?"_ The feminine voice rings in front of his eyes, reminding him of rich honey on Sunday mornings, like he can almost taste it flowing against his dehydrated tongue, and if he stretched his hands in front of him he could almost feel it sifting through his fingertips. He wants to break into a smile, but his chapped skin feels like tearing dry leather and he groans in pain.

"_I'm…not sure. We found him washed up at the seashore here, he's still breathing,"_ An older man dressed in a polished polo suit says.

"_Let's find an ID."_ Vienna nods.

"There's nothing left, only a wallet with four hundred bucks and two coins. Here's a photo, it's so faded there's just about nothing left. I also found a spinning top, it seems like. A silver top."

"Hand it over."

All that is left of the ocean washed photo was a slight glimpse of a little boy holding a windmill. She turned the picture over. On the back she read a neatly written note:

_Arthur J. Charles February 15__th__, 1989_

He remembers his childhood now, he remembers standing on the roof of his house staring up at the deep blue sky and he feels this sudden surge of power and freedom, as if he could conquer the whole entire world. With hands held high into a sky so blue thoughts cross his mind and he thinks the earth is out of proportion, too tiny for the never-ending sky.

His eyes flutter open and his hummingbird heart skips like a newborn butterfly opening its intricate wings. His vision focuses and he stares into a opalescent shade of green, tainted with specks of glinting silver, and he almost thinks he's back amidst the ocean waves. Suddenly he thinks of something, the thought wavers on his face like a water ripple; he sees this turquoise color and he remembers someone, someone with these colored eyes, staring up at him. In a dream, maybe, a dream where he'd fallen up the sky and flew to the ground. But, no matter. It was a dream, a white nightmare. The beautiful color grows fainter as he falls back under, and the next thing he knows he is greeted by fresh clean white bed sheets that smell like the laundry and the low incessant buzzing of a night lamp beside him.

His throat feels dry, if only he can rinse it with something, if only he was back in the ocean with the waves crashing his senses to make him feel a numbed safety. _Mmmm…_ He mumbled.

_Shhhh. "Keep quiet."_ It is the same voice again, the one like flowing honey, quenching his thirsty ears. _"Arthur."_

This name, meaning nothing to him, sounded through his mind. _Arthur_. It had a nice ring to it, he thought.

"Who am I?" He whispered. His eyes adjusted to his dimmed surroundings, he was in a small plain room, a picture of a fluorescent sailing boat rising with the tide, framed in a glass box, hung before him. Twin night lamps stood, beside him. A petite pot of a purple flower smiled at him.

"You don't remember who you are, do you?" The girl in the white dress sat beside him.

He can only shake his head.

"_That's what I thought. The doctors say you have amnesia. But I know the truth."_

Only one word, one word, hung before him again. Her lips moved in unison with his thoughts; he saw the word enunciating through her moving lips_**: Limbo.**_

The girl smiled again, and it almost seems to take him back to his childhood, running through the wheat fields, catching fireflies in a glass jar, sipping cranberry juice and swapping late summer mosquitoes away on grandma's front porch.

She pointed to herself. "_Vienna."_

Then she points at him. _"And you, your name is Arthur."_

The name rings in his head again. _"How do you know my name?"_

"_Magic."_ Vienna mouthed.

Arthur was taken back. _Really? Could there really be magic, existing somewhere off the coast, somewhere…_

She laughed._ "Of course not. Just kidding. It was scrawled on a photo that I found in your wallet."_

Seeing no reaction from Arthur, she tilted her head. "Don't worry, I didn't take anything. Here is your wallet." Vienna placed the brown leather Louis Vuitton _port-faille _on Arthur's bed.

"_Where is this place?"_ He laid his head back on the soft pillow. A pain was emerging to his head, swirling shots of throbbing, distracting him.

"_This is near the Mediterranean coast. Actually, I'm not too familiar with this place myself. Me, and my father, we sail here and rest in the holidays."_

Arthur reached instinctively into his right shirt pocket for something, until his fingers brushed against the smooth texture of an unfamiliar shirt.

Vienna blushed sheepishly. _"Sorry, you had a deep cut. I had to treat your wound and give you a new shirt. This is my dad's. It's definitely not as well fitted as your old clothes were…the three piece suit…he's not very stylish, you see."_

"_But there was something…in the pocket."_

"_What was it?"_

"_I…I'm not sure, actually…But I just know there should be something there; I always used to keep something there."_

"_Oh! You mean this?"_ Vienna opened the drawer and closed her slender fingers around a small silver top and spun it on the nightstand. It spun and slowly came to a stop, toppling over the stark clean glass and rolling into Arthur's hands.

"_Yeah, this thing."_ He frowned, holding up the little silver top to the light source. _"I can't remember…what this is anymore. But it was very important to me; I know I can't lose it. This…determines dreams from reality, in the space of waking dreams…that would make everything okay."_

Vienna pursed her lips in confusion. He was saying things that didn't make any sense to her…but she had read from one of her father's old books, sneaking in his library one day, and she had learned something about dream creators and extractors, and there was something about the dangers of Limbo. A whole library of gibberish nonsense like that, things forbidden to her knowledge, and things she had been taught by her father to avoid. "_Because the danger of this knowledge is undoable, undeniable, and untouchable."_ Her father had warned her.

Vienna touched her lips, humming to herself. She poured Arthur a glass of glistening water. "_We're setting sail tomorrow morning. Better have a good rest or else you'll be seasick."_

Arthur stood up slowly. _"Thank you. And…where are we going?"_

"_Barcelona. My father has a string of villas there. It's where we live. I can pick one out for you, there's the best house ever facing the ocean, not the biggest house, but the most comfortable_." She stole a glimpse at Arthur._ "Don't worry. My dad's too wealthy to mind another customer. Besides, it gives him good company. After he's retired all he can do is bug me, and you would be a great presence for us, anyway. It's quite lonely in the summers._

Through the wide windows behind his bed, Arthur peered out at a placid, tranquil ocean, so calm like a sheet of paper, that he thought what a deceptive nature it was, because the real ocean was daring, fatal, and dangerous. There was no cacophony ringing in his ears tonight, save for the sporadic fluttering wings of a lonesome seagull, a silent nocturnal cry of a white owl. He drifted off to sleep with the silver top in his hands and his mind set on a blank tomorrow.


End file.
